


Of Destruction

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gift Giving, Holidays, Presents, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9062707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: It's October when he works up the courage to ask. At least it would have been courage if he'd thought about it at all. But there's not a lot of thought involved. Not before the words tumble out: "What if I got you a Christmas present?“





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A Season 4 Christmas Interlude. Popped into my head while cooking, and there are 18 minutes of the day left where I am. I’m not sorry to see this year end, and I’m trying to have hope for the new. I wish you light and the destruction of what needs destroying. 

 

 

 

Every act of creation 

is first an act of destruction. 

—Pablo Picasso

 

* * *

 

It's October when he works up the courage to ask. At least it would have been courage if he'd thought about it at all. But there's not a lot of thought involved. Not before the words tumble out. 

"What if I got you a Christmas present?" 

They tumble out, but the bullpen hums, and there's not much air behind them. He hopes she didn't hear. He's afraid she hasn't when her hands still. Her pen halts over whatever form she's filling out. 

She heard. And she isn't saying anything. And he's an idiot. An _idiot._

He's about to apologize—about to laugh it off like he didn't mean it—when her pen starts moving again. When she speaks, her voice is just as low as his.

"A little after the fact, isn't it, Castle?" Her eyes are studiously on the page in front of her, and the movement of her hand is slow. Deliberate. "Asking?"

He's relieved. He's so relieved that she's saying anything at all that he doesn't really process the words themselves. Most of him doesn't, but the part that moves his mouth thinks it has a handle on it. 

"Doesn't count!" He feels his forehead tighten, like it belongs to someone else. Feels his face screw up in an indignant frown. "That . . . money— _charity_ —that totally doesn't count."

Her pen stops again. It taps the page, over and over, until she sets it down. She folds her hands on the desk. It makes for an odd picture. She's so rarely still here. So rarely silent, even when he knows she'd like to be. When she'd rather ignore him and whatever's nonsense he's spouting. 

"It counts, Castle." She gives him a smile. A sideways, underneath smile that makes his heart thunder in his chest. "To me, it counts." 

 

* * *

 

He doesn't bring it up again until November. After the bank. Before her birthday. He brings it up again, and despite the defiant set of his jaw, she can see he's every bit as nervous about it as he was the first time. 

"I mean a _real_ present."

He says it casually. He tries to, anyway, like it's not out of the blue. Like it hasn't been a month. But it _has_ been, and they're not alone. They're not waiting out the end of her shift in the bullpen. They're at a crime scene. They're stamping their feet against the cold while a dozen people mill around. 

She feels exposed. _He_ feels exposed, but he can't stop himself. She sees he can't.  

"Something for you."

She wants to snap at him. To tell him to drop it. And she wants to tell him—really tell him—how much the flurry of envelopes means to her. Thank you notes from the storefront theater her mom loved. From the grassroots neighborhood group and the student organization her mom co-founded in law school. Half a dozen of them by the end of each year. _In honor of . . . In loving memory . . ._

She wants both at the same time. To shut him down. To let him in. She wants to say _something_ , but her breath curls in the air between. He looks away. Shifts awkwardly on his feet and looks like he'd gladly swallow the last three minutes whole if he could. 

"I know what you're doing, Castle." 

Her voice is a shock to them both. Her more than him, if anything. 

"You do?" His eyes are wide. He leans in, like he'd love nothing more than for her to tell him. 

"You get me a present, I have to get you one, right?" She feels a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. Feels a rush of relief when he smiles in answer, because it's the right thing to say, even though she had no idea. Five seconds ago—three, two, one—she had no idea, but they're smiling at each other in the cold. "Don't you already have everything, Castle?"'

"Not quite," he says, and suddenly it's not cold at all. Suddenly her cheeks are burning and she feels the warmth of his body as surely as if he'd twined his arms around her and pulled her close. "Not quite, Kate." 

 

* * *

 

He knocks on her door in December. The twenty-seventh, to be exact. Days after the last of her half dozen _thanks you_ s have arrived. 

_Johanna_

_Detective_

_In honor of_

_In loving memory_

"It's not Christmas," he says right away. He's not dressed up. He's very _pointedly_ not. But it's a coat she hasn't seen. A scarf that must be new. It has crimson and silver and blue woven all through it. His hair is neatly trimmed, and his cheeks are smooth and a little ruddy, as though he shaved, last thing, right before he walked out the door. Everything about him is careful, but he's most definitely not dressed up. 

"It's not," she replies dumbly, because that's definite, too. It's definitely not Christmas, but someone has to say something. Someone should, so she says it again. "It's not Christmas anymore." 

She's smiling. He's not, but she can't stop. She can't help but think of October. Of November and two Christmases already that have meant more to her than she's ever said. More than she's ever been able to say, and she wishes she could give it to him. The smile she can't stop every time one of those little white envelopes arrives. She wishes she'd wrapped it up, but she hasn't, and here they are. Here he is, shifting something from hand to hand. A brown paper shopping bag, absolutely plain. 

"That's for me," she says, heartened by the twine handles and the everyday marks they make in the tips of his fingers. Heartened by the fact that it's not silver and gold and fancy, whatever it is. 

It's huge, though, and that's daunting. Huge and heavy, apparently, but it's like he's forgotten about it. It's like he's unaware of . . . pretty much everything. 

"For you," he echoes. His eyes widen. He remembers what's important about this. About what it is and what it's not. "It _is_ for you, Kate." He smiles slyly. Recovers himself a little. Just a little, though. His voice is anything but steady.  "But not for Christmas."

"Do you want to come in?" 

The words tumble out, and she thinks of him that October day. She remembers how late in the evening it was. How glad she'd been to have something to do. A pen in her hand and the ever-present tower of paperwork within reach. She feels for him in October. In November. In the here and now, even though it's not Christmas. 

"I shouldn't," he says, and she notes the oh-so-careful wording, even as it cuts her. Even as she feels her own smile retreating and the offer withering away. "I shouldn't," he says again swiftly as he grabs her wrist. As he folds her fingers carefully around the handles of the carefully plain brown paper bag. "But this is for you, Kate. Ok."  He wavers. Looks longingly over her shoulder to the fuzzy throw sagging over the pillows on the couch. At the hissing, popping wood stove and the corked bottle of wine on the coffee table. "Ok," he says, more than a little miserably. 

And then he's gone. Almost before she knows it. Long before she can do any one of the hundred things that suddenly occur to her. Before she can catch hold of his sleeve. Before she can thank him. Before she can thank him for _not_ giving her anything before now. No one-of-the-boys bottles or girls-must-like gift cards. Nothing silly or salacious or earnest. Before she can tug him inside and make him show her this, whatever it is. He's gone. 

The door is closed. Latched and chained, and she registers the weight of the bag. Its bulk and the awkward way it doesn't really move. 

She sets it on the coffee table. She sits heavily behind it on the couch. She looks from the creased brown expanse to the bottle of wine. Her palm comes down hard on the cork, almost unexpectedly. Almost as if she hasn't exactly decided against another glass or two. Her fingers curl around the bottle, and then it's gone. Set aside, leaving the bag all but alone. 

It's hard to come at, literally as well as figuratively. She reaches in. Once she works up her nerve, she reaches in, but it's awkward—a tight fit that makes her wonder if he lowered the whole damned thing into to flimsy paper with a crane or something. It rattles and creaks as she tries blindly to get purchase on what ever it is. 

The corner of the bag tears. A loud, horrifying rending sound that draws a gasp from her. That has her snatching her hands back, then diving right back in, because she wants to _know_. The bag falls away in tatters. 

There's a second layer of brown inside. Thin, corrugated brown that stands tall a moment than falls elegantly out, a fringe around the brightly colored rest of it. Tight rolls of the stiff packing material stuffed here and there to stabilize. To secure. But the brightly colored rest of it is Lego. A sizable grey base and two structures at opposite ends. 

A trebuchet. It makes her laugh. It's slender and fragile and locked and loaded. She dips a finger into the bucket and feels pocked metal. Something cool and white and out of place with the rest. Something more serious. 

And at the other end, a wall rising high. Part of it, anyway. The top is snaggle-toothed, right and left. The heart of it has Swiss-cheese holes, and even without the trebuchet—even without the tension on the bit of twine holding it down—there's something so impermanent about it. Not fragile. Brightly colored or not, it's too formidable for that, but it's old. It's at the end of its life and she wants to let the heavy, pocked ball fly. 

She doesn't, though. She plucks away the packing material. She fetches out tiny, zip-top bags filled with plastic bricks sorted by size. By function. She fetches out three larger bags, each tucked away inside a turret just beyond the falling down wall. 

There's a strip of white at the top of each. A curl of paper with his neat block capitals.

 _NOT FOR CHRISTMAS,_ says the first, and she laughs. She wishes he hadn't gone, but the second says _FOR YOU,_ and she's glad he has. 

She smooths out the third with shaking hands. With a pounding heart.

She reads the words and doesn't know what to wish. She knows what she can't help wishing. 

_FOR WHEN YOU'RE READY._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this entirely on my phone while in the car, so I'm sorry for errors.


End file.
